Sapphire Preps 4GB HD 5970 and HD 5870 Eyefinity 6

With CeBIT imminent, hardware makers of all kinds are eagerly hinting at what their respective booths will have on display, especially if they are preparing products based on technology that has not yet been formally introduced. One such technology is the Eyefinity 6 which provides AMD HD 5xxx series cards with support for up to six displays. Sapphire, for one, will be demonstrating the HD 5870 Eyefinity6 edition.

The Sapphire HD 5870 Eyefinity6 will likely stay faithful to the reference design put together by Advanced micro Devices. The product will come with an AMD Cypress graphics processing unit, 1600 stream processors, 32 ROPs, 80TMUs and no less than 2GB of GDDR5 memory, whose interface is of 256 bits. Such a large memory is necessary for six-display scenarios, setups made possible by the six mini DispayPort connectors.

While the Eyefinity 6 has been expected for a while, Fudzilla mentions that the new technology might not see such a widespread adoption because the principle it operates on isn't exactly immersive. While the Eyefinity was generally successful in providing a better gaming experience, six-display setups inevitably lead to thick black lines on the viewing area, “or rather like you’re playing behind bars.”

Regardless of this card's chances, however, Sapphire is also working on an even more powerful product that will likely be in a position to compete with the ROG Ares HD 5970 graphics card from ASUS. Like this model, the Sapphire HD 5970 model has 4GB of GDDR5 memory (2GB per GPU). This card will have custom cooling, most likely along the lines of the company's “Atomic” series which use water cooling and other such technologies.

Naturally, there is no mention of product prices or detailed specs, as these will be unveiled at the Expo. The company will also showcase its Mini projector 101, an N450 netbook and a series of socket AM3-supporting mini-ITX motherboards.